This op-ed appeared in the New York Times on August 5, 2002

Members of Congress are home for the annual August recess. No more all-night debates on the new Department of Homeland Security. No more failed compromises on a prescription drug benefit for seniors. No more lobbyists and Washington fund-raisers. It's back to family, friends and constituents for barbecues, visits to senior centers and trips to shopping malls.

For members of Congress - 98 percent of whom have been re-elected in recent years - the August recess usually confirms that all politics is local.

But things are different this August. The country and all its people have lived through an extraordinary year, defined by searing events and inescapable symbols. People are haunted by the deaths of Sept. 11, the destruction of the World Trade Center and the still unsolved anthrax attack through the mail. This was followed by war in Afghanistan, and now the possibility of war with Iraq looms.

Enron came to represent a new kind of villainy, as corporate executives cashed out and employees lost their jobs and pensions. Arthur Andersen did more shredding than accounting. Ken Lay and a parade of other chief executives who had run their companies into the ground slunk across the news. The WorldCom scam was followed by a stock market crash and the shrinking of once-flush 401(k) plans.

Meanwhile, revered public institutions, previously above criticism, came under intense public scrutiny. The scandal of pedophile priests forced the leaders of the American Catholic Church to struggle with the idea of accountability. And the top administrators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation faced public scorn when it became known that they ignored the warnings of F.B.I. field agents about terrorist attacks.

This unrelenting stream of bad news and broken faith has reshaped the public consciousness just as members of Congress head home. Nearly 75 percent of their constituents and likely voters say they are very angry about the Enron executives and their misdeeds, according to bipartisan national surveys conducted for National Public Radio. Nearly an identical percentage are very angry about chief executives taking lavish bonuses and perks as their companies fail and pensions lose value.

With 74 percent of likely voters in next year's election owning stocks or having retirement accounts, the financial scandals hit close to home: Three in five of these voters report suffering losses this year. These voters are looking at substantially diminished college funds and retirement savings.

A public consensus is emerging that the behavior evident in the Enron and other scandals reflects a bigger problem: people in powerful positions now feel free to act irresponsibly and hurt ordinary people, without fear of being held accountable.

It is not surprising that trauma from these scandals has in recent days overtaken the sense of national unity that existed in the months immediately after Sept. 11. Voters are moving toward a different set of conclusions about the country. In March, according to N.P.R. surveys, 60 percent of voters thought the country was headed in the right direction, and only 28 percent thought things were headed seriously off track. But in the last month, voters' moods have turned very dark. Just 36 percent still think things are going well, while 56 percent think things are headed in the wrong direction.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the public rallied around America's institutions, including Congress, but that feeling is gone. As recently as April, 52 percent of voters surveyed said they wanted to re-elect their member of Congress, but in the last month, many voters have moved to a different judgment: just 41 percent said they were likely to vote for the incumbent, while 42 percent said they now want somebody new.

President Bush is still a popular leader who gets high marks for managing the war on terrorism. And according to a recent poll by Public Opinion Strategies, terrorism is still the public's top concern. But that is not true when people focus on how they will vote for members of Congress. In that context, the war on terrorism slips to fifth place. According to N.P.R. surveys, the top issues for Congressional races are the economy and jobs (mentioned by 35 percent of respondents), Social Security and Medicare (24 percent), education (23 percent) and affordable health care (21 percent).

At senior centers, voters will be eager to talk about low interest on their savings accounts and the collapsed value of their investments, if they had any. They will almost certainly ask whether federal policy makers will make Social Security benefits dependent on the stock market. And of course, they will ask their representatives in Congress why they aren't doing anything about the cost of prescription drugs.

As members of Congress greet people back home, they will still have to deal with lingering fears of unknown terror, unrelieved by Congressional consideration of a new Department of Homeland Security. The country cannot easily take a break from the issues and remembrances that weigh it down. After this year's events, voters are worried about America's security, economy, retirement and corporations. During the summer recess, members of Congress will still take up issues like getting more money for schools, roads or county hospitals. But this year, not all politics will be local.

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